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Yeah i finally got an Lomo LC-A after so long! I got the original made in the USSR version not the China made one.

Took it out one morning, left the house abit earlier to go to the Esplanade and shoot the roll off. Quite liberating when all you need is to set the focus distance and just shoot.The viewfinder is quite nice i can see the frame quite nicely even with my glasses on and the view finder displays the focus setting as well so you don’t have to take your eye off to check the focus distance.

Most of the shots with large expanses of sky resulted in a bit of underexposure other times it was fine, quite a few the colors were quite saturated. I still don’t really understand why it happens but it guess that’s part of the mystery and fun when using such a camera. Film spacing between frames are abit too close for my liking since i need to cut it quite accurately so it does not cut into the other frame.

Scanning the LOMO film was not too difficult, i used VueScan and locked in the base color of the film to do the scan and then just some simple levels and exposure tweaks.

Catch the photos on my tumblr page @ http://tmblr.co/Zg1BLqxUtZjC. The shots were all taken using LOMO 400 film and scanned on my Epson V600.

A Holga is a simple unassuming camera that just allows you 2 apertures and a single shutter speed, coupled that with a view finder that isn’t very accurate and focusing by guesstimation. What you have in most sense is a camera that most photographers won’t even want to touch with a 10 feet pool. But yet this simple camera has become the tool for a number of photographers.

Just take a look at the Flickr holga pool and you can see that the Holga can be quite a capable camera in the correct hands.

For me the Holga becomes a tool for taking pictures without care. Since there is very little control, you just make sure to switch on the flash when your are indoors or just take pictures when its sunny. You might think that because of the limitations you might find less pictures to take.

On the contrary, you just discover the pictures that you can take because the limitations are there, you just need to concentrate on finding the picture rather than deciding on what aperture or shutter speed to use.

The Holga is only sharp in the center so remember don’t try all sorts of funny things with the Rule of Thirds if not you might be disappointed about how blur your pictures always are.

It’s possible to get sharp pictures from the Holga, just don’t count on it every time. Seems like my sharpest photos are taken with focus set at the the single person setting (0.9m check out this guide), that’s probably the distance i can judge the best.

DigitalRev recently put a Pro Photograher with a Holga, it just goes to show that having a vision about what you want to shoot is more important than the tool itself.

So go out and have some carefree and fun time shooting with a Holga.

All pictures here are taken with a Holga with either TriX or Delta 400.

An interesting walk through the ages and the many masters of street photography. From Cartier Bresson to Vivian Maier to Martin Parr, and i have learnt a few that i have not heard of before. Great watch.

Just managed to shoot off one roll of Ektar 100, usually i am mostly a B&W kind of guy so i don’t really shoot a lot of colour. But after i see the scans from my Ektar 100. I am amaze at the vibrant colours that came off the scans! They reminded me of slides films, i think Ektar could be a good replacement if you like slides, considering that E6 process is getting harder to find and expensive.

For those who like camera porn information, all shots taken with a Leica M2 with Voigtlander Color Skopar 50mm F2.5 with a Voigtlander clip on meter. A Nikon Coolscan V with VueScan was used to scan all the negatives using the Lock Film Base Colour method and Generic Negative. Slight post processing include levels and vignetting.

You can click on the images for the larger image.

The film seems to emphasise the reds and the greens very strongly and gives off a saturated look overall.

For skin colour, it renders Asian skin tones quite naturally. Perhaps just with a tinge of redness or warmness to it.

Don’t you just love the colours :), one thing i found was that if you underexpose Ektar it tends to colour shift. I haven’t really try overexposing Ektar and see what’s the effect on the scans.

I think Ektar is one of those films perfect for those who like vibrant colours and want to go back to seeing those colours pop up like colour reversal films. I still have another roll around, and will continue to experiment with it.

Steve McCurry shooting the last roll of Kodachrome. He is back to doing what he does best, shooting iconic portraits.

After seeing this video, it made me realised that film might be not be here forever, film production are closing down although there is a resurgence now but it’s inevitable i guess.

i went out and bought 2 rolls of Fuji Provia 100F intending to just use these 2 rolls to shoot portraits of my family and people i know. I don’t think i will be shooting slides for long though, they are simply quite expensive. Each roll of Provia costs me $13.50 SGD not counting the processing costs. Lets see how these slides turn out.